Interestingly, when the second goal went in in midweek, it wasn’t the players or the manager who took the flak. Instead, angry faces turned en masse towards the directors’ box.

Their defeat to an average Polish side was a case of the chickens finally coming home to roost on a gamble which may have paid off by the skin of its teeth in Kazakhstan last season but finally failed him on Wednesday night.

It’s not as if no-one saw it coming, Neil Lennon chief amongst them. He bailed, partly because he could see that the law of diminishing returns on a lack of investment in the team was going to put a black mark on his CV eventually.

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Now, though, their stay of execution not only guarantees them £1.8m for participating in the play-off round, it guarantees them half a dozen group games in the Europa League at an absolute minimum in the event of a defeat.